War of Words Over Wikipedia Ads Continues

Willis W. writes "Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales reiterates his opposition to advertising in response to reports that Wikipedia needs a major cash infusion. Responding to Jason Calacanis' charges that he 'has a fringe, anti-corporate bent to him' that is 'holding Wikipedia back,' Wales says that running ads on Wikipedia is not his decision to make. Though he personally dislikes the idea of advertising on Wikipedia, any decision to utilize ads would have to come from the community. At the moment, he won't rule anything out. 'I can't say if I would ever support something like that,' he tells Ars, 'but I can say that I currently maintain the same position I always have: I am opposed to it.'" What do you think Wikimedia should do to shore up the financial situation of the Wikipedia?

Its so obvious

Sell pot.

Wiki ads

I have no problem with ads on Wikipedia...as long as everyone can edit them like articles! And with AdBlock Plus it's not like I'll be seeing them anyway.

Re:Wikipedia Meme - Topped Out Last Year

Your post doesn't convey much information content, though I do love the use of MS Paint and the novel use of the mathematical term "inflection point" to try and get your message across.

I also like how you used Google Trends, which is an engine that essentially compares for which term is more searched for, and asked it whether MSN.com or Google.com fared better. Because I'm sure the number of people who use google.com to search for google.com are representative of everyone. Everyone with the inability to realize that they are already at the website they want to be at.

Re:Wikipedia Meme - Topped Out Last Year

Of course you can use it, you just can't cite it, because it isn't a source. It's an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia articles consist entirely of information that stems from other sources. This makes Wikipedia a useful tool to locate relevant sources of information on a subject you want to learn more about or write about.

Re:Wikipedia Meme - Topped Out Last Year

I've taught composition - I encourage students to use it to find topics. How many people have gone on Wikipedia and wasted hours chasing links and footnotes? Of course, I don't let them cite it, but if you can't go further in-depth than a wikipedia entry, your paper has more problems than just sources.

Philanthropy

It seems to me that there would be any number of private foundations and individuals that might be willing to help. Granted that takes a lot of work, but at least you won't have to commercialize Wikipedia.

Re:Philanthropy

I would probably donate to Wikipedia, but I'd want them to do something about their now rampant cronyism and favoritism first. Any interesting topic on Wikipedia not only has annoying nonconstructive people who are (rightly) shunned, but a small number of editors can crap the place up, yet seem able to "do no wrong" because they have connections. It reminds me of the worst part of scientific circles, without the tolerance of open and public debate.

Now, that is not to say that Wikipedia isn't doing something cool, so don't brand me as someone who is against it. Complaining about corruption in a police department, for example, doesn't mean you want the entire police force to disappear. On the whole, Wikipedia is a very useful resource and a good starting point for serious investigation of many topics. I want to see them succeed. However the rapid growth has given them some problems, and until they show that they are trying to address these problems I'm unlikely to donate. That way, I can save my money for a better successor if they end up dying.

Re:

I agree. Wikipedia is a good example of the failing of populism and bureaucracy. How many wikipedia users are admins? I don't know, but it seems like every other one is, and they all have an agenda. Those who have greater power than normal admins seem to n

Just like the Highway Maintainance

It seems to me that the best option would be to use a system much like that used for keeping the Nations roads clean. You know those signs that are all over the roads, that say that certain businesses, clubs, and other organizations have adopted certain r

Re:

The problem with that idea is that with a corporate logo there, it gives the impression that that company has control over that page, or at least has influence over it. Even if that is not really true, the perception of bias would be very strong.

Re:Philanthropy

Philanthropy is an amusing concept. First you wait for someone to come up with a method by which to rip off the public and thereby make billions of dollars, then you ask them to contribute some of that money back to the community.

Surely a better idea would be to just stop them ripping everyone off in the first place and then use that money (via say a fairer tax structure) to fund projects like Wikipedia and the many other "worthy causes" that Philanthropy supports.

Re: Philanthropy -- Distributed Hosting

A lot of people don't want to donate but many would be more than happy to donate a few gigs of my hard drive and some small part of my bandwidth to wikipedia on occasion. I cite F@H (Folding at Home) for all those who know of it (thanks to all who do it) which I am already doing. If that concept could be applied to hosting Wikimedia then their hosting fees could drop dramatically. (possibly to zero). All those people who already use wikipedia could pay back some of the debt they owe to it by helping host it.

In touch with the people

'has a fringe, anti-corporate bent to him'

I don't think that anti-corporate is all that "fringe". Most People feel that Mega-Corps have too much power. Making them a source of revenue, gives them control over the product. Look at the difference between PBS or BBC and most other TV networks. Or just ask your congressman what corperate sponsorship really costs.

Re:

You missed one for BBC. DOCTOR FUCKING WHO!
i hate the lameness filter

Re:

BBC has a lot of interesting stuff, as well as a lot of funny stuff. Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf, and some people even like Monty Python, many seem to rate those at the level of among the best of comedy TV, commercial or not. Since I don't get much of a dir

Re:

Corporate TV has: 24, House, Heroes, The Office, The Daily Show, Battlestar Galactica, Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, The Wire, and lots of shows that used to be good like The Simpsons and Lost.

Yes, corporate TV has: entertainment, entertainment, entertainmen

Google

What about Google? Practically anything I google for results in a Wikipedia article as the first hit. I can't believe that pagerank alone results in Wikipedia articles ranked highly so consistently for practically every search topic imaginable. I think it would be an advantage for Google to buy out Wikipedia, as they seem to rely on Wikipedia already.

Dan East

Re:Google

I'd rather google just by generous enough to donate money to the Wiki project rather than buy them out. We all saw what happened when google bought youtube. Youtube sucks now. It's copyright infringement take down notice frenzy over there. Once there's money behind something... they start coming for you no matter what.

Think of all the wiki's about games or tv shows or whatever that have pictures etc. I just see it as a problem. Once there's money, some fucking lawyer from some fucking corporation is going to want to pressure wiki to do things as they see it, or else.

Google or someone else with money like BILL FUCKING GATES should donate money to wiki to keep them afloat. It's a nice public service created by the public with good intentions for all.

It would be a shame to see it go the way of corporate buy out or internet advertising and so forth.

Maybe Gates wont donate money cause Microsoft wants to do something similar.... Same for google... but inject ads all over the fucking place. See why Wiki needs to stay ad free? Remember the Do no evil Google statement? Youtube blows. They over censor, you can see violence but not tits, you can type "go suck my dick" in a comment, but you cant show it. You cant post anything as a public video that contains a clip from some tv shwo or anything without being taken down.

I just see it as a nightmare situation and another win for old corporate America if Wiki goes this route. In some respects, i'd rather see them just end Wiki rather than sell out to the sleeze.

Re:

Buy out? Wikipedia isn't something you can buy. It's backed by a foundation, which as far as I know, can't be bought, and even if it could, such a purchase would mean the instant end of the Wikipedia community (and the birth of Wikipedia 2.0, with new anti

Re:Google

If that sort of behavior catches on, it will make Google very unhappy, because the role of the search engine will decrease.

Google is a lot better at searching Wikipedia than Wikipedia is.

Re:

A site i like very much, The Truth About Cars [thetruthaboutcars.com], thought about charging a subscription for use but realized it would cut down traffic enormously and make themselves a less useful resource in the end. I had a long discussion with the very nice fellow who run

Re:Google

Ack - speaking of selling out. Google has proven themselves to be no better a company than any other. They made a mockery of their "do no evil" pledge with the whole search in China thing, and with their lobbying efforts in the various states.

Please stop seeing the world in black and white. They did the right thing given two crappy options and are being punished for it by self-righteous westerners.

More locked articles please?

Disregarding financing and expenditures ... Wikipedia is just plain wrong. I spent the last 90 minutes tracking "recent changes" undoing a bunch of "LOL PENIS" edits. At that rate of destruction Wikipedia would be TOTALLY worthless after only a month or so if all the volunteers stopped performing "undo" operations.

Also, I think anonymous edits is just a bad idea. I understand that some folk can't attribute their identities to their edits, but too bad. Without volunteers WASTING THEIR TIME on revision edits wikipedia wouldn't even be a good STARTING place let alone reference...

And please, if you're one of those trolls adding "LOL PENIS" to wiki articles, please stop. It's childish and doesn't make you cool, it makes you an ass making work for others. /rant

Tom

Re:More locked articles please?

I spent the last 90 minutes tracking "recent changes" undoing a bunch of "LOL PENIS" edits.

Thanks a lot jerk. It took me three hours to do those.

Re:More locked articles please?

Middle ground: Anon can contribute to the "talk" page, but only registered & logged in users can edit the article itself. That way anonymous can still contribute by suggesting info in the talk page. However, since the average person looking for information on stress tensors won't look at the talk page, there's no point trolling because none of the intended victims see it.

A small delay before an account can be used, like on Fark, might also be useful to prevent throwaway accounts.

fringe, anti-corporate bent

"Fringe, anti-corporate bent"? Obviously. Otherwise Wikipedia wouldn't exist in the first place. To a businessman, the market was already saturated, between MS Encarta and Brittanica. Innovative ideas don't come from businessmen. Only after something catches on can it be exploited to the point that it's just barely worthwhile (i.e. "fully monetized").

First

Find a different chairperson. This one would let the corps in and ruin it. Remember what happened to CDDB. Expect the same thing to happen here.

Donations continue to pour in, the staff is minimal, and the Wikipedia brand is too powerful to simply disappear into the ether if money ever does get tight.

There you have it. The brand name is what the corps want to exploit. Well if they get their hands on it, then it wil be time to create an alternative based purely on the community. Because this one will become just another "Clear Channel" of web based encyclopedias.

Easy Solution:

I've now edited Jimbo Wales to make him in favor of advertising on Wikipedia, thus saving Wikipedia. You can all thank me later.

User fee for bandwidth

Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) prices bandwidth at $0.20 per gigabyte. Host Wikipedia on S3, and write some glue code so that people can have Wikipedia browsing accounts which are billed by Amazon. People who cannot have an account due to being minors or developing-country-dwellers can perhaps have their fees paid by a charitable foundation. Storage is $1.80 per gigabyte per year from Amazon, so if Wikipedia is a terabyte, it's under $2,000 per year. How big is it?

Re:

.20$ / gb is a high bandwidth cost. Bulk, wholesale, right off the pipe like Wikipedia pays for it, I'd say something like .01-.03$ / gb. I can buy, pseudo retail, at .045 - and that's expensive. Really very much so. HOWEVER, Wikipedia went through ~19

Jimbo anti-corporate?

The hell he is. He's an objectivist [slashdot.org]. Objectivists practically get sexually aroused at the thought of corporations.

Opt Out (Two Senses)

What possible reason could you have to oppose opt out ads for wikipedia? If you don't like them you could turn them off and wikipedia would get lots of money it could use for hosting and potentially even enough to fund other projects.

Frankly I don't see any good reason not to put even mandatory small tasteful text ads on wikipedia. I think it's silly enough for public radio/TV not to support themselves by ads but at least they do short sponsorship bits and they at least have the argument that they need to maintain the appearance of not being influenced by corporate money but wikipedia, by it's very nature doesn't need to worry about appearing to tailor its information to advertisers.

As far as Wale's claim that the decision isn't up to him it's up to the community it is correct but may not be the right point. My understanding is the default position is that wikipedia will remain without ads and the community would have to get up and make a demand for it to change. It is Wales (and other foundation members) decision to set the default policy and I think it should be the opposite.

Still, having said all that if other people care enough about wikipedia being ad free to donate money to keep it running then that's their prerogative. At one point I donated money for wikipedia but I won't do so again. I have no problem viewing ads to keep wikipedia afloat but since wikipedia could damn well support itself with zero detrimental effect my money could accomplish a great deal more being donated to projects that actually need it.

Public Funding is the answer!

Government / Public funding is the answer. Wikipedia offers the general public of developed countries a great resource and Wikipedia should therefor look to the governments and public institutions of various countries to contribute the (relativity) minuscule amounts which are needed to support it.

You only has to look to the BBC for proof that this would work. They seem to be able to operate one of the Internet's great resources (with multimedia features which are surely far more demanding than wikipedia's) without the need for adverts or such.

Board of Directors

The Wikimedia Board of Directors (or its equivalent) must make decisions that guarantee the long-term viability of the nonprofit organization. If they fail to do so, bad things happen.

The revenue from Google ads on the front page alone would surely guarantee the financial viability of the whole Wikimedia brand for years to come.

I see this as a board decision alone. While the community would have an uproar, the organization would survive. The vast majority of their "clients" would never realize the difference.

Re:

I see this as a board decision alone. While the community would have an uproar, the organization would survive. The vast majority of their "clients" would never realize the difference.

The problem is that with Wikipedia, the community is much of the org

Cost Benefit Analysis

Also I should remark that most of the objections I have heard to ads on wikipedia center around the annoyance of seeing ads or some other supposed cost to making the visitors see ads. Now if you don't donate to wikipedia yourself even a little I don't think you really have much standing to object to ads but whether you do or not consider the following point.

The question should not be whether wikipedia is better with or without ads. Obviously no one favors hosting ads for free on wikipedia. The question is whether the cost of having ads is more than the benefits ad money can buy.

Can anyone here really say they would take a million dollars from other needy open source/content projects or other worthwhile charity (cancer research etc..) just so people didn't have to see (opt out?) ads on wikipedia? Yet a million dollars is at the low end of the ad revenue wikipedia might generate, the potential to benefit the community is huge. Can you really say that not seeing ads is worth denying the community that much benefit?

advertising is a form of violence

ok, not all of the time, but much of the time.

two examples:

  - mile after mile of billboards as you are driving
  - the yellow pages

in the first example you are essentially held captive and forced to see advertising.
in the second you've made the choice to look at advertising in search of products and services.

the first example is for all intents and purposes against your will (thus violent).
the second example is something you choose freely.

if the community wants advertising, my preference would be for a "yellow pages" type of advertising model.

if you are for wikipedia advertising, which example most closely resembles the type of advertising you would choose?

I don't see a call to donate

After reading this I went to donate $25 because I use this service a lot and it is an ubiquitous part of the information appliance aspect of the net for me. I had to click around and then reach for my glasses to find the little "your continued donations keep Wikipedia running" link in like 6 point type. Come one folks - ASK FOR WHAT YOU NEED!

Before turning this over to advertisers make an appeal. Put it at the top of every article that comes up on search. You can't just say donations don't work when you don't really make an effort to us know you need them.

Wikipedia actually just did that

They actually just did a big donation drive over several weeks. The progress bar was moving pretty steadily -- the last time I noticed it I think it was 3/4 of the way to the goal. Now if the goal was representative of what they actually needed, shouldn'

Decentralize?

One way would be to figure out a way to decentralise the database. Rather than living on 350 servers perhaps it could live in 35,000,000 screen savers, all communicating peer to peer?

How? Beats me. Maybe start by experimenting with moving mediawiki's change tracking to modeled on Arch [gnuarch.org]? Rendering a wikipedia article would then become an exercise in gathering all the necessary changesets from the P2P network. Instead of querying wikipedia's servers, you could just query your screen saver. Editing an article would consist of making a change then publishing the changeset on the P2P network.

Any other ideas? These are just random musings. There are plenty of people who are seriously studying this stuff.

BBC is thinking about ads too

Perhaps the debate about BBC ads [bbc.co.uk] has some relevance to Wikipedia.

According to The British Internet Publishers Alliance (BIPA), showing adverts to non-UK readers of BBC websites would also undermine the BBC's "worldwide reputation for integrity and impartiality."

Wiki articles are supposed to be written in the neutral point of view and while ads may not compromise that goal, it may be difficult to convey neutrality when you're writing about a product and running a related advertisement at the same time.

paid memberships

I'd rather see paid memberships before ads.

Everyone still has the same free access, but paid members are cited as supporters, with the length and amount of their support - creating a public log of how much they have given to support the encyclopedia. This type of membership is directly in line with the non profit purpose of the organization, so the fees are tax deductible donations.

Basically, it will tie in to the same reason why people give time and knowledge - to support the cause.

Memebers get a little "star" or a bold username of something - and membership is like $25/year.

Users who visit the site without a membership are greeted with a splash screen with the current financial information of wikipedia, burn rate, and a simple way to sign up and become a paid donating member.

9th grade biology

As my 9th grade biology teacher Mr. Devlin used to say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch!"

As with any project of this size and scope, someone has to pay for it eventually. Whether it's through paid advertisements, user donations, subscriptions, or quasi-advertisements (sponsors) like they have on PBS and NPR these days, someone has to foot the bill.

Where's all the money going?

Can someone explain to me when the Wikimedia Foundation suddenly became poverty-stricken? The latest financial statement [wikimedia.org] from the Wikimedia Foundation indicates that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006, they received $1,508,039 and spent $791,907 (leaving them with net assets of $1,004,216); according to the Wikimedia fundraising website [wikimedia.org] they received a further $1,096,299 in the second half of 2006 and have received $275,427 so far in 2007. In order for the Wikimedia Foundation to be in trouble, they must have gone from spending $791,907 last fiscal year to spending over $2,000,000 in the first 8 months of this fiscal year.

Personally, I'm not going to make any donations or support advertising on Wikipedia until someone explains where all the money is going.

Re:Where's all the money going?

Can someone explain to me when the Wikimedia Foundation suddenly became poverty-stricken? The latest financial statement [wikimedia.org] from the Wikimedia Foundation indicates that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006, they received $1,508,039 and spent $791,907 (leaving them with net assets of $1,004,216); according to the Wikimedia fundraising website [wikimedia.org] they received a further $1,096,299 in the second half of 2006 and have received $275,427 so far in 2007. In order for the Wikimedia Foundation to be in trouble, they must have gone from spending $791,907 last fiscal year to spending over $2,000,000 in the first 8 months of this fiscal year.

Personally, I'm not going to make any donations or support advertising on Wikipedia until someone explains where all the money is going.

This link [lunchoverip.com] sort of answers your question.

Wikipedia needs to be distributed -not full of ads

Wikipedia needs to give out their data and let others host parts or all of it. They need to think like Bittorrent. They need one place for edits but multiple places for viewing. This will reduce their costs significantly because others will share the burden of hosting. But I suspect that they just want to cash in and commercialize it. It's also likely there are interests out there that want to control Wikipedia because they want to control information. BTW - Let me ask this. How can I get a copy of all the Wikipedia data? How can I get updates?

Re:You Want Wikipedia to Survive...

Merchandising! Get your Wikipedia t-shirt. Your Wikipedia toilet paper. Your Wikipedia breakfast cereal (each batch is produced according to a wiki recipe -- just hope vandals didn't alter the recipe). Wikipedia the flamethrower!

Re:

This is the best idea to date. It works pretty well for OpenBSD, why not Wikipedia?

Re:it exsists

http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia [cafepress.com]

Re:Why not ads?

God thats horrible. Your son's school gets ad money? So you're allowing corporations to educate your child on which products they should be buying, from an early age?

Thats sick.